[CPI Seminars] [CPI Lyceum Platform] What is a sign? Though a seemingly simple question, and one which may receive a technically simple answer, attaining a clear understanding of signs is a task both very difficult and very important; so important, in fact, that the whole future of philosophy (and by extension, human knowledge in general) …
Forthcoming Endeavors
We're four weeks into the pilot seminars and results, so far, feel mixed. Immediate attrition hit and several people, clearly not enthused, dropped out and away. This is to be expected; I am not trying to appeal to everyone, but to the persons for whom this kind of education will be most fruitful. That said, …
On Semiotics
This week's 15 Minute Insight (the 4th and final in the series), on semiotics as a discipline and as the normative science of truth. But now, let us ask—since we’re talking about the study of the action of signs and this questions seems pretty important for that discussion—let us ask, what is a sign? In …
Problems with Neuroreductionism
A short, fifteen minute audio recording on the problems with neuroreductive ("you are just your brain!") explanations of human experience. I'll probably do more of these "fifteen minute insights" in the future.
Artificial Intelligence & Concept Formation
The text of this talk (given 19 March 2019 at Aquinas College in Grand Rapids, MI) is now available here. I'll be recording a video of myself presenting it (audio recording did not work out during the initial presentation) sometime in the near future as well.
Some notes on animal cognition
Aquinas—unlike some others of his time, before his time, and even after his time—did not always underestimate the potency of non-human animals’ estimative capacity by reducing it to “instinct”: that is, to an inborn, unchanging, “pre-programmed” routine of how to deal with environmental factors. As we know now, in an endeavor accelerated by the investigative …
Unitive Amory or Fragmentary Polyeros?
In Defense of Monoamory, or Why Open Relationships aren’t for Anyone Most human thinking is determined not by free investigation of beings, let alone of being, but by the ephemeral vogue. This is true no less in philosophy than in more popular culture; only, within the ivoried walls of the academy, sophisticated language routinely obscures …
Thoughts on Being Human [3] – Signs of Our Times
What are the signs of our times? That is: what signifies our here-and-now moment? Screaming politicians? Angry mobs? Memes? The ubiquity of networked technologies? It is always hard to tell, from within a moment, what signifies the intelligibility of that moment; understanding precisely where we are requires spending time to find points of reference. Every …
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